ter an obstinate combat, and ten days' marching and
countermarching, the army, which had brought from Moscow only fifteen
rations of flour per man, had advanced but three days' march on its
retreat. It was in want of provisions, and now overtaken by the winter.

Some leagues from Mojaisk we had to cross the Kologa. It was but a large
rivulet: two trees, the same number of props, and a few planks were
sufficient to ensure the passage; but such was the confusion and
inattention that the emperor was detained there. Several pieces of
cannon, which it was attempted to get across by fording, were lost. It
seemed as if each corps was marching separately, as if there were no
staff, no general order, no common tie, nothing, in short, that bound
them together. In fact, the elevation of the chiefs rendered them too
independent of each other. The emperor himself had become so exceedingly
great, that he was at an immeasurable distance from the details of his
army; while Berthier, holding an intermediate place between him and
officers, all of whom were kings, princes, or marshals, was obliged to
act with a great deal of caution. He was, besides, incompetent to his
situation.

The emperor, stopped by the frivolous obstacle of a broken bridge,
confined himself to a gesture expressive of dissatisfaction and
contempt, to which Berthier replied only by a look of resignation. On
this particular point he had received no orders from the emperor: he
therefore conceived that he was not to blame; for Berthier was a
faithful echo, a mirror, and nothing more. Always ready, clear, and
distinct, he, so to speak, exactly repeated the emperor, reflected him,
but added nothing of his own; and what Napoleon forgot was never
supplied.

After passing the Kologa we marched on, absorbed in thought, when some
of us, raising our eyes, uttered a cry of horror. Each one instantly
looked about him, and there lay stretched before us a plain trampled,
bare, and devastated, all the trees cut down within a few feet from the
surface, and farther off craggy hills, the highest of which appeared
misshapen, and bore a striking resemblance to an extinguished volcano.
The ground around us was everywhere covered with fragments of helmets
and cuirasses, with broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and
standards dyed with blood.

On this desolate spot[167] lay thirty thousand half-devoured corpses;
while a pile of skeletons on the summit of one of the hills overlo